A Comprehensive Strengths-Based Approach to the First-Year Experience

1
A Comprehensive Strengths-Based Approach to the
First-Year Experience

• Laurie A. Schreiner, Ph.D.
• Eileen Hulme, Ph.D.
• Azusa Pacific University
• 2006 Annual Conference on the First-Year
  Experience

2
Strengths-Based Education A Paradigm Shift

• Survival of the fittest
• Deficit remediation
• Strengths-based education

3
Strengths Philosophy

• Individuals gain more when they build on their
  talents, than when they make comparable efforts
  to improve their areas of weakness.
• --Clifton Harter, 2003, p. 112

4
What Are Strengths?

• Talent Knowledge Skills Strength
• Talents are naturally recurring patterns of
  thought, feeling, or behavior that can be
  productively applied
• By refining our dominant talents with skill and
  knowledge, we can create strength the ability to
  provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a
  given activity.
• --Clifton Harter, 2003

5
The Highest Achievers

• Spend most of their time in their areas of
  strength
• Have learned to delegate or partner with someone
  to tackle areas that are not strengths
• Use their strengths to overcome obstacles
• Invent ways of capitalizing on their strengths in
  new situations

6
The Focus Changes

• FROM
• Problems
• Attendance
• Preparation
• Putting into the student
• Average

• TO
• Possibilities
• Engagement
• Motivation
• Drawing out from the student
• Excellence

7
Why A Strengths-Based Approach Promotes Student
Achievement

• Strengths Awareness ? Confidence ? Self-Efficacy
  ? Motivation to excel ? Engagement
• Apply strengths to areas needing improvement ?
  Greater likelihood of success

8
Identifying Strengths

• Clifton StrengthsFinderTM (The Gallup
  Organization)
• Text for First-Year Students Clifton Anderson
  (2002) StrengthsQuest Discover and Develop Your
  Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond
• Advising questions

9
Evidence of Students Strengths

• Pay attention to yearnings
• What is most satisfying? What do you enjoy most?
• Describe a successful day
• Describe key achievements in your life
• Look for rapid learning -- what comes easily?
• Watch for flow or soaring events--times when
  excellence was achieved without conscious thought

10
Building Strengths

• Identify the natural talent themes
• Ways of processing information
• Ways of interacting with people
• Ways of seeing the world
• Habits, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that
  can be productively applied
• Affirm those themes with significant others
• Develop the themes by learning knowledge and
  practicing skills
• Apply the strengths to new or challenging
  situations

11
Strengths-Based Approaches to the First-Year
Experience

• First-Year Seminars
• Advising
• Residence education programs
• Orientation
• Leadership courses or programs
• Mentoring programs
• Technological interventions

12
Strengths-Based Approaches to the First-Year
Course

• Lots of ways NOT to do it!
• Concentrated modules (4 is typical)
• Peer mentors, strengths counselors, or other
  outside-of-class mechanisms
• StrengthsQuest as a text
• Approach is infused in other material throughout
  the term

13
One Approach

• Four class sessions (1-1/2 hour each)
• Identify strengths through Clifton
  StrengthsFinder outside of class
• Use StrengthsQuest text and exercises
• Journaling and out-of-class assignments
• How to communicate with others and work in teams,
  based on your strengths
• 30-minute interview with advisor to discuss
  strengths and how to capitalize on strengths to
  overcome obstacles
• Written personal success plan is part of course
  requirement

14
Results of Empirical Study

• Significant differences between the 8 treatment
  sections and the 8 control groups in
• Satisfaction with total advising experience (5.68
  vs. 4.65,
• p lt .001)
• Perceived helpfulness of personal success plan
  (5.64 vs. 5.17,
• p lt .05)
• Course evaluations (5.70 vs. 4.74, p lt .001)
• Perception of instructor (5.99 vs. 5.48, p lt .01)
• Cumulative GPA after one semester and after one
  year
• First semester 2.84 vs. 2.51 (p lt .001)
• First year 2.77 vs. 2.43 (p lt .01)
• Retention after one year
• 77.6 vs. 65.9 (p lt .05)

15
Azusa Pacific University Approach

• 927 first-year students
• Peer leaders were trained to run all the
  strengths groups outside of class
• 4 class sessions
• Designed videos on their strengths
• Journaling
• Strengths counseling appointment

16
Results

• Significant differences in
• Relating what they are learning to who they are
  as unique persons
• Seeing others in light of their strengths
• Planning their future around their strengths
• Applying strengths to achieve academically
• Academic self-efficacy
• Positive self-concept

17
What is a strengths-based course?

• Instructor is teaching from his or her own
  strengths
• Instructor shares his/her strengths with students
  and how they are used to be successful in the
  discipline
• Instructor encourages and assists students as
  they identify their own strengths
• Instructor teaches students to apply strengths to
  course assignments

18

• Instructor provides variety and options in course
  assignments, according to students strengths
• Instructor assigns work outside of class to
  identify and build students awareness and
  development of their strengths
• Teams are created in class that capitalize on
  diversity of strengths

19
Infusion of a Strengths Approach Throughout the
First-Year Seminar

• Identity and Values
• Relationships, Team-Building, and Conflict
  Resolution
• Academic Applications Learning Styles, Applying
  strengths to academic challenges
• Diversity Issues
• Career Planning Process
• Managing Stress
• Leadership

20

• Good advising may be the single most
  underestimated characteristic of a successful
  college experience.
• --Light (2001)

21
What Is Academic Advising?

• assisting students to realize the maximum
  educational benefits available to them by helping
  them to better understand themselves and to learn
  to use the resources of the institution to meet
  their special educational needs and aspirations.
• David Crockett, USA Group/Noel-Levitz

22
Three Major IssuesAdvisors Typically Confront

• Course selection
• Adjusting to the demands and requirements of
  college
• Choosing a career

23
Advising with Impact

• Advisors who are
• Knowledgeable
• Accessible
• Concerned
• Advising that is
• Strengths-based
• Planning-centered
• Goal-directed

24
Strengths-Based Advising

• How is it different?
• Operates from a different foundation that by
  becoming aware of their strengths, students will
  be more motivated and academically engaged
• The focus shifts from problems to possibilities
• The framing of advising tasks and questions
  shifts

25
How Is It Different?

• The feeling a student experiences in the advising
  session is different
• They feel understood and known by their advisors
  at a much deeper level
• They experience higher motivation levels since
  their choices reflect and tap into their
  strengths
• They are significantly more satisfied with
  advising
• Students gain confidence and a sense of direction
  from the advising session

26
Steps in Strengths-Based Adivising

• Identify and affirm students talents
• Build students awareness of how these talents
  can be combined with skills and knowledge to
  develop strengths
• Set goals with students, helping them see that
  strengths establish pathways to goals
• Develop an action plan

27
Residence Life Programs
28
Orientation
29
Leadership Programming
30
Using Technology
31
Adapting a Strengths-Based Approach to Your Own
Campus

• Work within your sphere of influence
• Determine outcomes in advance
• Plan the evaluation before the implementation
• Allow plenty of time
• Ownership and buy-in throughout the faculty,
  staff and executive administration begins with
  understanding their own strengths
• Need help with evaluation instruments?

32
For more information

• Laurie Schreiner, Ph.D. Eileen Hulme, Ph.D.
• lschreiner_at_apu.edu ehulme_at_apu.edu
• Noel Academy for
• Strengths-Based Leadership and Education
• Engaging Learners, Inspiring Leaders
• Azusa Pacific University
• Azusa, CA 91702-7000
• [phone]